


Get a Grip

by Newtavore



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aftercare, BDSM, Blood, Contracts, Knifeplay, M/M, Non-Sexual Bondage, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Non-Sexual Kink, Painplay, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Safewords
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2014-03-14
Packaged: 2018-01-15 17:43:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1313614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Newtavore/pseuds/Newtavore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Hurt me," he'd said, looking at you with that weird face he got when he wasn't sure whether he should keep posturing or run away, "Cut me. Make me bleed."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Get a Grip

**Author's Note:**

> oh my god what am i doing please take ao3 and all writing programs away from me i am so sorry trigger warnings for blood and cutting and eridan being a stupid kelp head and lots of other things.
> 
> trigger warnings for a lot of stuff if you're easily triggered you might not want to read this

He wants you to hurt him. 

 

That's what he told you, anyways- ' _Hurt me_ ,' he said, looking at you with that weird face he got when he wasn't sure whether he should keep posturing or run away, ' _Cut me. Make me bleed._ '

 

You know he used to do it himself, before the game ended- with knives, with jagged glass, broken blades, claws, whatever he could get his hands on, whatever he could use. You know it helps him relax, helps him feel calm. You also know that he's… not  _human_ , but… weaker, thinner skinned, less resilient now. More adaptable to whatever planet you were rocketing towards. Outwardly the same, but physically, internally different. 

 

He can't do the same things he used to. He can't rip open the skin of his wrists, his thighs, his hips, and expect to be fine, like before. You know this and he knows this because you'd kicked in the bathroom door and found him frantically trying to stop himself from bleeding out, panicking because it  _didn't usually go like this, he didn't usually bleed this fast or this much and he didn't know how to stop it_ -

 

You'd patched him up and agreed not to tell anyone, though not without the price of him explaining what the hell he was trying to do in the first place. 

 

He'd put up a front, of course, baring his teeth and snarling and trying to intimidate you into leaving in a way you hadn't seen since you'd first started talking to him, when he was just the puppy in the corner looking at everyone else with this heart-wrenching expression of absolute remorse, regret, repentance. 

 

You'd just stared at him through your shades and asked him, calmly, what the hell he was thinking when he almost killed himself. 

 

The thought seemed to scare him because he flagged, ear fins pinned back against his head, shoulders hunched, and explained, in quiet, halting terms, what he was  _actually_  trying to do. 

 

He told you that it was a method to keep himself calm, in control. He told you that he used his pain as a way to force himself into an agreeable headspace, and, jokingly, that it was the closest thing to a moirail he had. He assured you he wasn't trying to…  _kill_  himself, and that nothing he'd ever done before this point had done any lasting damage besides faint scarring, that he knew how much he needed, how much he could tolerate, how to be careful and safe, but he wasn't used to how  _little_  these new bodies could take. 

 

It… it might have infuriated you, to be honest. You'd seen the way he interacted with the other trolls from his session; as in, he didn't. They ignored him, excluded him, downright rejected him and his gestures of apology and friendship, and he was left alone in the dust to pick himself up and try again. 

 

Because he didn't stop trying, ever. He kept attempting to make amends, far beyond the point where he should have just given up and tossed them off, because they were obviously interested in forcing him to make up for his mistakes tenfold. You weren't stupid, you know he'd done some dumbass shit, but so had everyone else. You were  _all_  fucking kids,  _every_  decision you made was a dumbass mistake, but they singled him out and crushed him down, over and over and over. 

 

And now he'd gone back to slicing himself to ribbons in order to keep himself sane. 

 

You know you're supposed to have a partner for this kind of shit, someone to make sure you're staying within the realms of 'safe' and 'sane', and you know he doesn't have one. You're also aware that he does need this. This isn't just an excuse to rip himself up, this really is something that he uses to calm himself down, but you can't tell if it's working because of the control he thinks he's exercising over his body or the pain and release of endorphins. 

 

So you hold his wrists in your hands, stare into his weird purple eyes, and say, ' _You can't do this without me._ '

 

He'd balked at that, trying to pull away, but he was wrung out and weak from blood loss and no problem to hold still. You kept talking, telling him that, without you there, or someone, anyone, he couldn't do this anymore, because it was dangerous to do it alone. You held his hands and explained everything you knew about contracts, negotiations, dominance and submission and the golden rules, everything you'd ever learned from TMI Tuesdays with Bro, and he'd calmed as you spoke, listening with wide, curious eyes. Listening to you speak always did seem to pacify him.

 

Apparently, trolls didn't have any sort of allowances for weird kinky shit in their culture, go figure. At least, nothing like the BDSM subculture, you guess. Weird. You would have thought that with all the hatefucking, kink would have been commonplace, at least as a method of partner A getting the drop on or making partner B uncomfortable, but you'd apparently been wrong. 

 

You spoke for hours, only stopping to force some food and water into him, and the conversation continued onwards in small chunks over the course of days. 

 

You watched as he grew increasingly jittery, irritable, and quiet, until he finally dragged you to your room and practically  _begged_  you to hurt him. 

 

You can't say you weren't expecting this, to be honest. You knew he'd snap eventually, but you thought he'd try to be sneaky about it, running around behind everyone's backs to carve himself up again, but instead he came straight to you. 

 

He came straight to you and threw everything you'd told him back in your face until all potential objections had been crushed to dust. He'd thought through just about everything, obviously done some of his own research, and the only thing left to do was talk, and talk you did. 

 

"What do you want?" you'd asked, as if you had any doubts. 

 

"Hurt me," he'd said, looking at you with that weird face he got when he wasn't sure whether he should keep posturing or run away, "Cut me. Make me bleed."

 

And, three days filled with serious discussions, negotiations, and an actual, hard-copy contract later, you're here, in his room, looming over his bound form with a knife twirling through your fingers. 

 

He's tied, naked and spread eagled, to the bedposts, blindfolded but not gagged, hands clenching and unclenching rhythmically in anticipation. He knows you're right above him, knows you're staring, and he's three seconds away from begging you to do something, anything, you can tell. 

 

So you touch the knife to his flesh, right on top of his prominent collarbone, and trace it down his side, point barely skimming over his gills. The touch is light enough not to cut or even leave a scratch, and he whimpers at the teasing tingle. 

 

"Please," he whispers, reluctantly, almost as if he is unwilling to vocalize, unwilling to tell you what he wants, "Please, more?"

 

You give him what he asks for. You think you will always give him what he asks for- within reason, of course. He's very hard to deny. 

 

You push the small blade, almost a scalpel, into the thin skin of his shoulder and cut a small, looping spiral into his flesh. He shudders and sighs, back arching. You carve another spiral, and another, until the meat of his arm is covered in the small, decorative cuts, leaking thin trails of purple. 

 

You move over his shoulder, tracing the same repetitive spiral pattern into his skin in blood and cuts, and he relaxes more with every touch of cold steel. His arm looks like it's covered in little scales, shining purple in the light.

 

"How are you doing?" you say, quietly, halting the blade as it reaches the side of his neck, by his little frills. 

 

"Good, please go on," he responds, pitched high, dazed. He's panting, eyes half shut, but not visibly aroused. Neither of you are- this isn't about sex, this is about letting go, about control, about letting someone else take over for a while. He doesn't want anything sexual out of this and neither do you. 

 

You work your way down, covering one side of his chest and part of his stomach with small, embellished lacerations before he whispers the safe word, body lax under your hands. You immediately set the knife down and release his bindings, leaving the blindfold for last. 

 

"I'll be right back," you murmur, and he makes a muddled noise in response, something that might have been words at one point but not anymore, not through the haze of 'hurts-so-good' he was currently floating in. 

 

You leave the room and fetch a bottle of water and the first aid kit from the kitchen. He's in the same position you left him in when you return, and though his head lolls in your direction, he makes no effort to open his eyes or communicate with you. 

 

"Come on, up you get."

 

You help him upright, ignoring his faint warbling, and get him to down half the bottle of water before his protests grow too great for you to work through. Then you lean him against the headboard and meticulously clean and disinfect every cut before wrapping his arm and chest with soft white bandages. He doesn't make a move for himself the entire time, relaxed and boneless in your hold, and you hum to him while you fix him up. 

 

He seems to enjoy your presence, and trills softly when you brush his hair back from his face, leaning into your touch. 

 

"How are you feeling?"

 

His eyes flutter open, and they're sleepy, glazed over. 

 

"Good. 'S good," he sighs, and jolts when you touch his face again, like he's snapping back to reality. He suddenly looks uncomfortable, embarrassed even, and bows his head, hiding his face from you. 

 

"You c'n leave if you want," he mumbles, and you grimace as he tenses, undoing a metric fuckton of hard work on both your parts, "I mean- thank you for this, you don't have to- to stay or do anythin', I'm fine-"

 

"Hey. Hey, stop."

 

He shuts up, biting his lip. 

 

"What's up? You were fine three seconds ago, and now you're upset. What happened? Did I do something you didn't like?"

 

You touch his face again, and he whimpers, making weird clicking noises in his throat. 

 

"I just… This is gettin' real pale, is all, an' people usually tend to not want anythin' to do with me if I end up comin' onto them, 'cause I read things wrong. An' I really don't wanna wreck this."

 

Pale. Pale, pale, pale- _oh_. 

 

"Pale's the one that's like being best bros except with cuddling and feelings and stuff, right?"

 

He nods, cringing a little. Like he thinks you're going to hit him, or yell at him, and suddenly you're angry all over again because he's afraid of you, after all of this, because he's waxing a little pale in your direction. Like you're going to beat him the fuck up because of something that he probably can't help all that much. 

 

From what little the angry short one had yelled at you about the weird quadrant system the trolls have, pale relationships were all about trust- well, trust and pity, but mostly trust. And the thing you had going on with Eridan right now was all about trust.

 

And, if you're being honest with yourself, it's kind of hard not to pity the troll. 

 

So you touch his face a third time, not letting him pull away. 

 

"I think I'm okay with that."

 

His head darts up, the tips of his horns almost catching your glasses. He looks so shocked, wide eyed and scared and hopeful, that you kind of want to hug him really hard. And while hugging is not ironic, it is, in fact, badass, because Striders are so fucking badass that they don't need to hide their mushy feelings in order to  _stay_  badass. 

 

So you shrug and hug him. You hug him, and he's tense and vulnerable and  _scared_  in your arms, long, thin fingers scrabbling at your shoulders like he can't decide whether to push you away or pull you closer. 

 

"I- you don't know what you're gettin' into-" he stutters. 

 

"I know that this pale thing is a pretty important relationship deal for you guys," you say, and with every word, he calms, becomes a little less stiff, "I know that you do things like calm each other down, and keep each other sane. I know that it's means I'm your friend, but more than your friend, I'm like this weird friend slash diary slash bottle of valium or something. I know that there's trust involved, and I know that what we just did involves more trust than anything else in the world."

 

He shivers, and you pull him closer. He doesn't resist. 

 

"So, I don't think I have a problem with being in some sort of pale thing with you."

 

You're suddenly supporting all his weight, and, even though he's not making a sound, you can feel tears soaking through your shirt.  You don't tell him to stop crying, and you don't try to shush him- you think he's probably heard that once too many times. Instead, you just hold him and hum into his hair, rocking from side to side, like Bro did with you the few times you'd had nightmares. 

 

"I got you," you murmur, rubbing a hand along the knobs of his spine, uncomfortably prominent through the thin cloth of his shirt, "I got you, it's okay. Cry all you want."

 

Crying doesn't make one weak, not acknowledging your emotions does. Bro told you that every day when you were younger, made sure to beat it into your head even as everything around you told you the opposite. Crying doesn't make you weak, not acknowledging your emotions does, and you tell this to Eridan like your Bro told it to you. 

 

He cries harder. Cries, and cries, and stutters things in a language you can't understand, deep and rolling and melodic. You let him cry. He obviously hasn't in a long time, and you know that sometimes sessions like the one you just had can bring emotions to the surface that need to be dealt with. Even if it was short, and even if you two didn't do anything too strenuous, he still probably would have broken down, though probably not to this extent. 

 

So you cradle him in your arms and let him sob into your chest until he exhausts himself, tears petering out, breath hitching softly. 

 

"Feel any better?" you ask, tilting his face up to meet yours. The skin on his cheeks is flushed, and as you watch, a few more pearlescent purple drops fall from his eyes, but he seems better. More relaxed, less anxious. 

 

He nods and leans forward, nuzzling the underside of your chin with a rusty, rumbling purr. There's something so distinctly, surprisingly non-sexual about the act- you thought this whole pale thing was going to be a lot of awkward semi-erotic foreplay disguised as cuddling, but this was… not. At all. 

 

You pet his hair and he chirrs, making squeaks and clicks and it was so alien, so strange, that you couldn't help but laugh. There's something endearing about it though, about his weird non-human noises and strange eyes and soft, fur like hair, the unnatural way his joints bend, the gills lining his neck and sides, the small, delicate fins located in seemingly random places all over his body. The way he purrs for you. The way he looks at you, wide eyed and trusting. 

 

He goes limp in your hold, draped over you like a heavy grey blanket, purr so powerful it vibrates in his chest. You think you remember reading something, hearing something, about trolls being weird and only purring when they felt safe and comfortable, and you kind of hope that's true, because you want him to feel safe around you. 

 

You wrap an arm around his shoulders, careful of the bandaged one, and roll around till you're spooning on his fluffy bed, surrounded on all sides by a multitude of colorful pillows and blankets. One hand gets buried in his thick hair, the other drapes across his waist, surrounding him on all sides with warmth, and he wriggles back until he's pressed as close as he can get. 

 

As he lazes in your arms, basking in the attention and contact you bestow upon him, you think to yourself that this is probably going to work out just fine for everyone. 


End file.
